Art show explores socio-cultural significance of Indian Jews

The significance of Jews in the cultural landscape of India has been captured in archival photographs, installations and scriptures of the community at a new art show here.
The exhibition titled "Hodu and the Jews" chronicles different sects of the community - the Bene Israel Jews of Maharashtra, the Cochin Jews of Kerala and the Baghdadi Jews of Mumbai and Kolkata, along with their respective histories and rituals.
"India has produced distinguished businessmen, artists, political leaders, poets and authors from the Jewish community. And when I was researching about them I discovered several complex things including their contributions in different fields.

"For most Indian Jews the paradigm has come up that India is their motherland and Israel is their father land. Diasporic Jews see this as a very positive experience because ever since they came to this country they were accepted with love and flourished without being persecuted or converted," says Kenneth X Robbins, the co-curator of the show.
Through a site-specific installation titled "Genizah", inspired by and modelled after the Genizah at the Jewish cemetery in Kolkata, city-based Israeli artist Achia Anzi has explored the notions of historiography of the community.
The installation represents two Genizahs - one showcasing the room used to store old books, and the other, sealed in the ground according to the Jewish customs.

The exhibition, which is part of a two-day international conference on art, culture and heritage of Jews of India, also includes a collection of photographs of luminaries from the community in fields of medicine, arts, cinema and architecture.

A section of the gallery is dedicated to "Refugees and the Bombay Arts Scene" that has on display pictures of and by artist Magda Nachman (1889- 1951), who was once acknowledged as a great Indian painter.
It was Robbins' interest in exploring minority communities in India that made him come up with three books documenting the life of Jews.
"I decided I will write one short book about Jews in India, but ended up with nine books, out of which three have been published. The first one was on western Jews where I wrote about the European and American Jews.

The show underway at Indira Gandhi National Center for Arts, also brings forth the community's impact on the Indian architecture.
"Otto Koenigsberger an architect of great finesse was the chief architect and planner of Mysore State and most importantly was the one who developed the plan for the refugee housing at the time of the Partition," says Robbins.
The exhibition also includes a special section on Hebrew calligraphy, titled "The Scribe".
The exhibition is set to continue till February 28.